543 D. In the following case the intellectual character, as I have termed it, of the organic process which responds to suggestion is illustrated in a striking and complex way. Mdlle. lima S., a subject observed by Drs. Jendràssik and von Krafft-Ebing1 (mainly at Gratz), was ultimately cured by hypnotic suggestion (or so Dr. Krafft-Ebing claims in 1888) of a lifelong tendency to hysteria and melancholy, such as had driven her grandfather, father, brother, and sister to suicide. She was therefore on the whole a great gainer; but her extreme susceptibility to blistering by suggestion amounted to a real risk in the absence of careful guardianship. Once at least she was much injured and offended by the culpable act of a medical student who laid a pair of scissors upon her chest, telling her that they were red-hot, and thus created a serious wound, which took two months to heal. Krafft-Ebing made a humane variation on this risky experiment. Like Dr. Biggs in the case quoted above, he ordered the production of red patches of definite shapes, which were to be formed without itching, pain, or inflammation. The history of the process thus set up is a curious one. The organism had to perform, so to say, a novel feat, which took a great deal longer than the rough and ready process of vesication.

From February 24th to May 3rd, 1888, a livid red hyperæmic surface corresponding to the letter K was slowly and painlessly developing itself on a selected and protected area between the shoulder-blades. It seems doubtful whether this performance was not altogether a new one,- whether any precisely similar trophic changes have ever occurred spontaneously. The support thus given to Dr. Biggs' narrative is most striking; and one lesson of the experiments of both physicians undoubtedly is that science need not be the loser by a careful adherence to the rules of ordinary humanity.

1 " An Experimental Study in Hypnotism," by Dr. R. von Krafft-Ebing, translated by C. G. Chaddock, M.D., New York, 1889.

But it is the incident next to be cited which speaks the most strongly for the educated character - so to say - of the intelligence presiding over these organic suggestions.

Mdlle. lima S. was permanently anaesthetic on the right side, and that side was therefore, in my view, likely to be more immediately subject to subliminal control. At any rate, it appeared that when any object was pressed on her left side, and suggested as hot, no mark followed at the place of contact; but a corresponding brand appeared, symmetrically and reversed, upon the right side. For example, an initial letter, K, was pressed by Dr. Jendrassik on her left shoulder. In a few hours a K-like blister, "with quite sharp outlines," came on the corresponding spot on the right side. But note that the new K (the letters are figured in Krafft-Ebing's work) was by no means an exact reproduction of the original one. It was of about the same size, but of a different type, in fact a capital K in another person's handwriting. Just as in Dr. Biggs' cases it was the idea of cruciformity which was induced by suggestion, so here it was the idea of K-shape; and insomuch as this suggested mark corresponded to an intellectual idea, that idea underwent some idiosyncratic modification in the subject's subliminal intelligence, and the resultant mark, though identical in significance, was different in contour.

And here again we have confirmation of one of the most curious of Dr. Biggs' phenomena the tardy appearance of part of an S - an attempt at SANCTA - as the result of suggestion, unaided by the physical contact of any S-shaped object, but in its due position above the suggested cross.

543 E. Dr. Pierre Janet describes similar experiments - in particular the production of red marks by means of imaginary mustard poultices in the case of his subjects Léonie and Rose (l'Automatisme Psychologique, p. 166). The place and form of the marks corresponded closely to the mental conception of the patient. For instance: -

Je dis un jour à Rose, qui souffrait de contractures hystériques a l'estomac, que je lui placais un sinapisme sur la région malade pour la guérir. Je con-statais quelques heures plus tard une marque gonflée d'un rouge sombre ayant la forme d'un rectangle allongé, mais, détail singulier, dont aucun angle n'était marqué car ils semblaient coupés nettement. Je fis la remarque que son sinapisme avait une forme étrange. "Vous ne savez donc pas," me dit-elle, "que l'on coupe toujours les angles des papiers Rigollot pour que les coins ne fassent pas mal." L'idée préconcue de la forme du sinapisme avait déterminé la dimension et la forme de la rougeur.

J'essayai alors un autre jour (les sinapismes de ce genre enlevaient très facilement ses contractures et ses points douloureux) de lui suggérer que je découpais un sinapisme en forme d'étoile à six branches; la marque rouge eut exactement la forme que j'avais dite. Je commandai à Léonie un sinapisme sur la poitrine du côté gauche en forme d'un S pour lui en lever de l'asthme nerveux. Ma suggestion guérit parfaitement la maladie et marqua sur la poitrine un grand S tout a fait net.

Dr. Backman relates the following of one of his clairvoyant subjects, Alma Radberg 1: -

"In the middle of an experiment I put a drop of water on her arm, suggesting to her that it was a drop of burning sealing-wax, and that it would produce a blister, which would, however, be healed after the third day. During the progress of the experiment I accidentally touched the water, making it spread on her skin, whereupon I hastened to wipe it away. The blister, which appeared the next day, extended as far as the water had run, just as if it had been a corroding acid, and the wound healed on the night of the third day".

Somewhat similar is a case recorded by Dr. J. Rybalkin in the Revue de l'Hypnotisme, June 1890 (p. 361), in which a post-hypnotic suggestion to the subject to burn his arm at a stove - really unlighted - produced blisters as of a burn.

Haemorrhage and bleeding stigmata were several times produced in the famous subject, Louis Vive (whose life-history is given in 233 A), by verbal suggestion alone.2

Professor Beaunis (Recherches Expérimentales, etc, Paris, 1886, p. 29) produced redness and cutaneous congestion in his subject, MIIe. A. E., by suggestion, and the experiment was repeated on the same subject by the present writer and Edmund Gurney in September 1885 (see Proceedings S.P.R., vol. iv. p. 167).

It appears that there is at present at the Salpêtrière a stigmatisèe, the development of whose stigmata has been watched by Dr. Janet under copper shields with glass windows inserted in them (Revue de l'Hypno-tisme, December 1900, p. 190).